Try to keep up with Australian politics. The zombie Parliament may rise again. Is that a Tax, a Trade or an Army I see?

So, we might have an election next month, we might trade carbon next year, the carbon price might be $24, or $6, or $40. We might have a new government soon, or none of the above.

Hows that stability working out for us now Rob Oakshott and Tony Windsor?

Kevin Rudd announced The Tax would move to become The Trading Scheme. But he still has to get it through Parliament, and it’s not looking easy.

The Greens don’t like it — because free market solutions are only “right” when the price is what the Greens want it to be.

The Coalition don’t like it either, though they are not so good at explaining why (watch Greg Hunt struggle here). The Coalition aren’t brave enough to say they prefer their own “no regrets” policy that could be unwound when the namecalling stops and everyone admits cooling Earth by 0.0C was always a waste of money. The Coalition won’t have to pay billions in compensation to their Green Army, but they can’t say that either. They know the love-media would crucify them if they admitted publicly that it was possible the models might be wrong. The IPCC can say that it is 90% sure, but no one is allowed to talk about the 10% chance there is some other outcome*. So we come to this bizarre moment in politics.

To get the Carbon Pox off his back, Rudd might have to recall Parliament, which everyone assumed was dead and buried for this government, and which also means debate on the floor and tricky questions. But even the zombie Parliament may rise, hints Rudd.

LABOR says it would attempt to drive through legislation to terminate the carbon tax a year ahead of schedule if parliament was to reconvene before the election.

But the Greens immediately put paid to any Labor plan, saying there was “no way” the minor party would allow legislation to fast-track the move to an emissions trading scheme through the parliament, now or after the federal election.

Climate Change Minister Mark Butler said laws to scrap the fixed price and move to an internationally-linked emissions trading scheme on July 1 next year would be ready before this year’s federal election.

“In the event that parliament were to resume before the election, I could take draft legislation to the parliament,” he told the ABC this morning.

“It may well be that legislation would be rejected by either house, in which case we would take it to the election seeking a mandate from the people,” he said.

On Monday on the 7:30 report Bill McKibben said the carbon price could even get to $40 a ton (and for once, I thought, let that man keep talking):

“…moving to an emissions trading system means that the price will be set by the market. If the European price turns out to be $40 a tonne next year, the Australian price will be $40 a tonne. How can you get to $40 a tonne? Well the exchange rate falls by 30 per cent, the Australian dollar value of permits will go up by 30 per cent, because now they’re set in Euros. The forecast should not be the basis of the policy. They got it wrong the first time by doing that, they’re potentially going to get it wrong again.”

Meanwhile the Labor Party are pretending they are helping Australians become $380 better off with their “new plan” — when they are really promising not to force people to pay as much as they originally planned, and in any case, the commissars in the EU (and forex traders) will be the ones who decide how much the Australian electricity bill will fall by.

Now Rudd’s-latest-clever-plan to find the money to get rid of the Carbon Pox is to play tricks with the Fringe Benefits Tax, which evidentially helps people buy thousands of Australian-made Holdens, Fords and Toyotas. With Ford gone and Holden teetering on the brink, could it be that Rudd will “save” millions, but force businesspeople to waste hours keeping detailed logs? And then in the aftermath, Rudd will hand back millions from taxpayers to keep Holden from going under? With every week, business plans and career paths are hitting the shredder. The bureaucratic carnage knows no bounds…

Remember the aim of the Hung Parliament Festivities in September 2010? Here in Australia the big most important Thing was “stability” for business. End the Uncertainty, they chanted. Yes indeedy. It was never about stability for business, who are getting shafted at every turn, it was about stability for politicians wasn’t it Rob and Tony?

Punters are betting on election dates (August 24 or 31 maybe October 19). Odds for a Coalition win are at $1.40, an ALP win at $3ish.

h/t to Peggy for the betting odds.

*Yes, we know the models are already proven wrong. This is a hypothetical.

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Try to keep up with Australian politics. The zombie Parliament may rise again. Is that a Tax, a Trade or an Army I see?, 8.8 out of 10 based on 40 ratings

154 comments to Try to keep up with Australian politics. The zombie Parliament may rise again. Is that a Tax, a Trade or an Army I see?

The IPCC can say that it is 90% sure, but no one is allowed to talk about the 10% chance there is some other outcome

When the consequences of being wrong are the pain and suffering of future generations under an increasingly extreme climate and reducing habitable areas, it hardly seems worth it. I mean we take out house insurance with the odds of being burgled a hell of a lot less.

everyone admits cooling Earth by 0.0C was always a waste of money

Actually this is the wrong answer, they are actually trying to mitigate how much worse it will get. We are already 30 years+ to late to prevent the effects, they are already occurring.

In regards to stability, this parliament has successfully run its full course, with the passing of a record amount of legislation and the progression of many nation building and long term policies put through for future prosperity and development. An approaching election was always going to occur now with its resultant uncertainty.

I mean we take out house insurance with the odds of being burgled a hell of a lot less.

No, most people take out insurance because it is required by the bank holding the mortgage.

I’m so sick of warmist justifying anything using the flawed precautionary principle. Further, this notion that anyone can predict the future and thereby put a price/penalty on the living today is an insane abuse of human rights, and sure to end in violence.

Michael, there is no guarantee that you’ll have living heirs. None of us have any such guarantee, no one or group can issue such a guarantee.

Actually this is the wrong answer, they are actually trying to mitigate how much worse it will get. We are already 30 years+ to late to prevent the effects, they are already occurring.

His backyard opinions are fine, if completely bogus, except that he parrots Labor rhetoric about passing record amounts of legislation, a particularly meaningless and intellectually bereft statement if there ever was one. I’d prefer one decent piece of well- crafted legislation in the true public interest, rather than a thousand pieces of legislation serving no other purpose than channeling taxpayer money into bloated bureaucracies, jobs for the boys, and compensating for a compendium of policy failures, errors, miscalculations, stupidity, lack of oversight and un-intended consequences.

Michael is a brain dead Labor zombie, a true rusted on believer who would vote for a prize winning pig at the Royal Easter show as Prime Minister if it ran under a Labor ticket. Pathetic.

Interesting that the government debates the “price” of something of no value excepting to a green plant and of no consequence to anything else.

In America, a few politicians within the Democrat political party (the more leftist of the political parties) reject “carbon limitations” schemes of any sort. This non-uniformity in a political party doesn’t seem to hold in Australia, although I could be wrong.

Interesting that the government debates the “price” of something of no value excepting to a green plant and of no consequence to anything else.

I don’t know which is worse, this devaluing of carbon dioxide in life or the demonising of it by AGW calling it a toxic..

We are Carbon Life Forms. We are around 20% carbon created by carbon dioxide. The rest mainly water.

Carbon dioxide is the fundamental building block of all carbon life forms, achieved from photosynthesis by plants which create carbon from carbon dioxide, and the rest of us critters eat the plants for it or eat the critters who eat the plants for it, or both.

We produce carbon dioxide from our own supply of carbon for every intake of breath – every lungful must contain around 6.5% carbon dioxide for optimum oxygen transportation through the blood and for ph balance in bicarbonate. Below 4.5% in every lungful in and you can start waving goodbye.. Every lungful exhaled contains 4% carbon dioxide, this is not overproduction on our part, it is essential reserves.

Hyperventilation for example, where it appears that someone isn’t getting enough air/oxygen into their lungs, is not the body gasping for oxygen, it is the body stopping the loss of carbon dioxide until it can build up sufficient levels again – the quickest remedy is to help out by breathing into a paper bag and breathing back the carbon dioxide you expel. Asthma sufferers are given extra carbon dioxide for just this reason..

What’s the dirty little secret with the ETS as compared to the flat out CO2 Tax.

There’s no 500 top emitters now, well, it never got to 500 anyway.

Now, every single entity that emits CO2 or the other GHG’s with their huge multipliers, or deals in those other GHGs has to purchase Credits in the amount they emit.

Now, it becomes a regulatory nightmare.

How do they actually measure the CO2 you emit?

Who gets to decide how much is being emitted?

Who keeps the records?

Who decides what shonky overseas credits qualify, and how much lower value they are to Australian issued credits?

Who gets to trade them?

When are the designated auction periods for those credits?

How will credit trading manipulation be policed?

What happens as in the case of South Australia, when power is desperately needed and the only plants available have already exceeded their credit allowance?

What happens when the majors reach their limit? Where does power come from?

Each emitting entity will now need a band of auditors just to keep track of emissions and the value of their credits at any and every single day.

Lucky the Solar Dawn Plant in Chinchilla folded, because with its backup Natural Gas fired option, it too would have been subject to the ETS. How embarrassing that would have been, a renewable power plant forced to pay for its credits.

So many questions.

And not a politician in the Country who has a clue as to just what is going to happen.

Who gets to decide how much is being emitted? I think in the EU it’s based on previous emission levels (but see above)

Who keeps the records? I think it’s the European Commission

Who decides what shonky overseas credits qualify, and how much lower value they are to Australian issued credits? Are the “overseas credits” shonky? Presumably Australia, as it is in the EU ETS, will issue permits in line with those issued by the EU or will have permits issued by the EU

Who gets to trade them? All the companies that have them

When are the designated auction periods for those credits? Seems to be specified as “fairly often”

How will credit trading manipulation be policed? Dunno

What happens as in the case of South Australia, when power is desperately needed and the only plants available have already exceeded their credit allowance? Can buy some more permits at auction.

What happens when the majors reach their limit? Where does power come from? As above

Each emitting entity will now need a band of auditors just to keep track of emissions and the value of their credits at any and every single day. That’s good news for the ALP as the loooove bureaucrats

What happens as in the case of South Australia, when power is desperately needed and the only plants available have already exceeded their credit allowance? Can buy some more permits at auction.

What happens when the majors reach their limit? Where does power come from? As above

Well, no, they can’t really.

Once an emitting entity reaches its credit limit, they possibly can keep on doing what it is they always do, but there is a very serious down side.

If, at the end of the 12 Month reporting period, they have exceeded their emissions limit, then those extra emissions are calculated and converted to credits (again, one credit per tonne of CO2 or equivalent GHG if another of the regulated gases with their huge multipliers)

Then, the emitting entity has to make up those credits to the equivalent Australian value, these extra credits costed at the highest trading value through the year.

On top of that, they must also pay a penalty in the amount of 1.5 times the value of those credits.

On top of that the over emissions are then deducted from the following years emissions target which is lowered at the start of every new recording year anyway.

Now, some poor blind freddies might think of this as OK and fair, but we’re not talking a few credits here and there. Consider large scale coal fired power plants.

Just for ONE DAY of over run, either a stinking hot day in Summer, or a snap cold spell, then the over run comes in at 82,000 tons of CO2 per day, so 82,000 credits, and even at (Labor’s modelled) current value of $6, there’s $492,000 in credit costs PLUS $738,000 in penalty costs for a total of $1.23 Million ….. FOR ONE DAY.

Then their emissions target is lowered at the start of the next reporting year, and ONE DAY further further gets deducted from that year’s total.

See now, how the scheme is not designed to actually lower emissions but just to raise money.

People can just blindly say that plants will stay in operation, just go and buy the extra credits.

I can see (as recently happened in States like South Australia with their heavy reliance on wind) grid controllers (and State Government members) screaming for power and plant operators saying, “sorry mate, that’ll blow my credit limit”.

Your scenario seems to negate the “Trading Scheme” part of the ETS. If an emitter doesn’t use the permits it has doesn’t it sell or give them back to the market thus making them available for purchase by over emitters? If not then what is the trading scheme trading? But are your comments on the Australian or the European ETS. If the latter then what you write is very different from my understanding. Not of course that I’m claiming my understanding is correct, it frequently isn’t!

“Now, it becomes a regulatory nightmare.”
Some of the major players in the EU ETS are the organised crime cartels from Southern and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. And your Labor Party want to get into bed with the EU ETS. Go figure.

Are you suggesting that organised crime cartels in Southern and Eastern Europe have “come to an arrangement” with the Australian Labour Party? Or perhaps the Australian Union movement that sits behind the Australian Labour Party?

The other day I was looking at “How much CO2 does a gallon of gasoline produce”. It gave some nice little formulas, but these assumed perfect combustion, which never, ever happens. A badly tuned car could be shooting huge amounts of unburnt gasoline through its exhaust, while even a well tuned car will still not burn with 100% efficiency.

I have also seen calculations of CO2 emissions based on oil production, however these did not take into account how much of this oil was used to produce lubricants, textiles and plastics.

Then I have seen calculations of “atmospheric CO2 emissions” based on “atmospheric carbon emissions” which did not take into account that carbon emissions include soot, ash, carbon monoxide etc.

I am still looking for really solid numbers on just how much CO2 is really emitted by humans.

Just how much co2 does Australia produce- well I got in touch with CSIRO when we had our last major bushfire in Vic. Well, I figured a major fire like that would produce a lot more co2 than our industrial society had produced in the last 10 years. The answer is,of course, that co2 produced by bushfires etc is not counted as it is natural. I presume “natural” equates with “not taxable”

Thats right Tony,a bureaucratic nightmare of red tape,”famous” world wide for massive fraud.Labor is still determined to drag us down to poverty and,no doubt,sell our remaining assets to China.
I loved a reference to Rudd in Quadrant the other day;”ridiculous,little man”.Quite so.

Like it or not, Rudd is a lot more popular than Abbott. Some commentators are saying the upcoming election will be akin to the 1993 defeat of Hewson by Keating with Abbott, like Hewson, losing the unloseable election. It is highly possible, if not probable at this stage, that the election result will be more akin to the 1983 defeat of Fraser by Hawke after Bill Hayden had been asked (forced?) to step aside. The ALP parliamentarians voted Rudd back to the top job to save their skins and so far it looks like it’s working. Abbott’s rather inane comments on taxing a colourless, odourless and invisible gas are very likely to come back to bite him. It would have been a lot smarter if he had dwelt more on the mechanics of the EU ETS and brought out the points that the price of CO2 can move up as well as down. Most Australians don’t bother too much about the mechanics of the ETS but they do bother about their electricity bills. However as we are all (well nearly all) to be persuaded we are being generously compensated by the Rudd government, this may well defuse any voter concern about prices. Of course by the time the ETS comes in, the concerns will be back with a vengeance but then so may Rudd and the ALP. Unfortunately, blogs by those such as Joanne, Anthony Watts, Steve McIntyre, Judith Curry and more than a few others, don’t have the public penetration of the MSM, so most voters won’t know of the growing suspicions that AGW may not be all it is claimed to be. There is so much that never gets discussed by the MSM that a rational debate in the near future is very unlikely. I find this so very disheartening

I am so sick of all this bullshit! – I asked a poster on Jennifer’s site “why do we need to decarbonise” after he posted all this babble about how best to reduce carbon in the economy!
Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant, plants love it and satellites show that the biomass is increasing because of it – the Amazon is greener, the northern african greenery is extending north into the Sahara. Farmers are getting greater yields for less input, plants are using less water. So why do we have to stop burning fossil fuels, why do we need emission trading schemes, why do we need a climate change policy?
Can’t we forget the past 10 years of bullshit ever happened and get on with our lives?

blackadderthe4th, janama is correct in both science and frustration.
The very fact that you can come here and post comments with youtube links speaks volumes of the true basis for the scientific method, an irony that seems lost to any closed mind.
I would dare say many came to Jo’s site 5 years ago seeking answers or opinions on AGW and found an improvement not an agenda on AGW, which also highlighted the lapse of true scientific methods worldwide.
On my first boxing lesson I was told “Leave your ego at the door, It’ll just get you knocked out” a valuable lesson indeed.

‘janama is correct in both science and frustration’ well no! Janama is wrong on the science, as I have displayed and is frustrated for no good reason, because the science is strong! As you can see here:-

‘Blackadder, do you do proof-by-youtube because you have trouble reading?’ Naw! Its because the short video clips are KISS for the benefit of the AGW anti-science mafia members, in most cases links should be in the description to the originals and I suggest you watch them and follow the references to the scientific papers.

Oh well (big sigh) I tried, but just one question blackadderthe4th, why are you so convinced with your view on AGW ?
I mean the good people here have presented you with heaps of credible hard scientific evidence (as Heywood below) but to no avail.
Is your view based on Political, Personal, Religious, Medical, reasons or what? throw me a freaking bone here.

‘just one question blackadderthe4th, why are you so convinced with your view on AGW?’ well it is more than one answer, but at the risk of repeating myself this is the best single reason! But no doubt it will have to be watched several times, because there is so much in it!

Ok folks there you have it, with a simple psych ploy you get blackadderthe4th’s real agenda as everyone else had suspected.
Yes, I never gave a shit about about your links (or you for that matter) and as for alluding to me being a “retard” I’ll take that as a compliment as I have worked with and associated with “retard’s” and they happen to be the most genuine loving people on the planet, a quality lost on a self serving ignorant twat like yourself.
Youtube is a good thing but has it’s stupid sides, you are just one of them.

No. What is really sad and pathetic are catastrophists that spend so much of their own time on skeptical blogs demanding that links are followed and YouTube videos critiqued when, in reality, nobody gives a shit what they have to say. But keep on keeping on, I am sure that your mother will be calling you to come out of the basement for dinner sometime soon.

And thats the end of round one, most judges would have given the round to Heywood by knock out but the black adder somehow managed to stumble to his feet and stagger into his comer where he is feverishly worked on by the doc.

The only way the black adder can survive round two is if he comes up with a new strategy but as with all warmbots he is playing an “all in” game.

“The effect of a doubling in the atmospheric CO2 concentration on the growth of vegetative whole plants was investigated. In a compilation of literature sources, the growth stimulation of 156 plant species was found to be on average 37%.”
—–

Growth responses of seven major co-occurring tree species of the northeastern United States to elevated CO2F. A. Bazzaz, J. S. Coleman, S. R. Morse
Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 1990, 20(9): 1479-1484, 10.1139/x90-195

“one consequence of rising levels of CO2 may be to increase the competitive ability of some species relative to others”

“Thus, elevated CO2 levels may enhance the growth of relatively shade-tolerant forest trees to a greater extent than growth of shade-intolerant trees”

“The amount of biomass supported by a unit of transpired water increased by an average of 52% for crop species, 76 to 128% for weed species, and 38 to 71% for tree species with a doubling of the CO2 concentration within the range 300 to 1200 ppm.”

“The primary effect of the response of plants to rising atmospheric CO2 (Ca) is to increase resource use efficiency. Elevated Ca reduces stomatal conductance and transpiration and improves water use efficiency, and at the same time it stimulates higher rates of photosynthesis and increases light-use efficiency. Acclimation of photosynthesis during long-term exposure to elevated Ca reduces key enzymes of the photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle, and this increases nutrient use efficiency. Improved soil–water balance, increased carbon uptake in the shade, greater carbon to nitrogen ratio, and reduced nutrient quality for insect and animal grazers are all possibilities that have been observed in field studies of the effects of elevated Ca.”

But most of those of these papers refer to plant growth of plants under increased co2 levels. However increased co2 level has other factors to consider, such as climate change! And these climate changes can have a greater influence on the destruction of crops due to increased rainfall, flooding, droughts, heat waves, etc, etc!

Actual observations show that increasingly extreme weather is very bad for crops.

“Last month, I spent a week traveling with my NRDC colleague Bob Deans through the drought-decimated corn and wheat fields of Colorado and Kansas, talking to farmers knocked flat by one of the hottest summers ever. This is ground zero for one of the worst droughts in recent history; more than half the counties in the US have been declared disaster areas and corn and soybean futures are soaring as a result.”http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/rkistner/in_a_kansas_corn_field_a_droug.html
———————-
“A new Oxfam report released today hopes to close this understanding gap between climate change and global food prices, arguing previous research grossly underestimates future food prices by ignoring the impact of severe weather shocks to the global food system.

You will probably understand that I do not agree. I have already provided much evidence on changing trends in hot day records over cold records (3 to 1) increasing to 5 to 1 at night. 7% increase in extreme precipitation events, and much more. You have statistical analysis of things like the European heat wave of the early 2000′s (2003 I think it was) and Russian heat wave that indicate how unlikely they would have occurred without AGW, Texas heat wave, Arctic Sea ice melt, Greenland nearly 100% surface melt and research showing how the warming arctic is affecting the northern hemisphere weather. You also have anecdotally 3 shocking years for extreme weather in a row and this one is shaping up to top them all, with the canada and india floods, european floods and much more. Sure you have extreme weather but as constant and widespread as it has been? I don’t think so. This is keeping your eyes closed.
2010
Looking back through the 1800s, which was a very cool period, I can’t find any years that had more exceptional global extremes in weather than 2010, until I reach 1816. That was the year of the devastating “Year Without a Summer”–caused by the massive climate-altering 1815 eruption of Indonesia’s Mt. Tambora, the largest volcanic eruption since at least 536 A.D. It is quite possible that 2010 was the most extreme weather year globally since 1816.http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1831

2011
“2011 will be remembered as a year of extreme events, both in the United States and around the world,” said Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn D. Sullivan, Ph.D. “Every weather event that happens now takes place in the context of a changing global environment. This annual report provides scientists and citizens alike with an analysis of what has happened so we can all prepare for what is to come.”http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120710_stateoftheclimatereport.html

“It was another year of incredible weather extremes unparalleled in American history during 2012. Eleven billion-dollar weather disasters hit the U.S., a figure exceeded only by the fourteen such disasters during the equally insane weather year of 2011. I present for you now the top ten weather stories of 2012, chosen for their meteorological significance and human and economic impact.”http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2316

‘it is likely to happen more often!’ I’ll keep it simple, just for you! The globe is warming up, as we all know, that means the atmosphere can hold more water, therefore there will be more rainfall, heavoer and producing more floods. KISS!

blackadderthe4th‘it is likely to happen more often!’ I’ll keep it simple, just for you! The globe is warming up, as we all know, that means the atmosphere can hold more water, therefore there will be more rainfall, heavoer [sic] and producing more floods. KISS!

Simple alright, they are taking you for a ride and you haven’t got a clue have you?

In an interview with Science News in 1975, C C Wallen, Head of the Special Environmental Applications Division of the World Meteorological Organization, had this to say about the consequences of the cooling trend since 1940:-

The principal weather change likely to accompany the cooling trend is increased variability-alternating extremes of temperature and precipitation in any given area-which would almost certainly lower average crop yields.
During cooler climatic periods the high-altitude winds are broken up into irregular cells by weaker and more plentiful pressure centers, causing formation of a “meridional circulation” pattern. These small, weak cells may stagnate over vast areas for many months, bringing unseasonably cold weather on one side and unseasonably warm weather on the other. Droughts and floods become more frequent and may alternate season to season, as they did last year in India. Thus, while the hemisphere as a whole is cooler, individual areas may alternately break temperature and precipitation records at both extremes.

In regards to the weather, the point is that apart from all the trends (science I have posted before) and the statistical examinations (such as the european and russian heat wave), the anecdotal evidence is that extreme weather is occurring more often and with increased intensity. As the extreme weather is only just starting to kick in (as predicted) it is to early to call it a trend.

But even though the extreme weather has always occurred before it is how much of it and how global it is. Seriously do some travelling, you need only do a short trip to Europe or the US to find many many people who have lived in the same place since they were born admitting that weather has changed and extremes are increasing. Also a lot of the times a flood or deluge occurs a lot of them are record breaking and happen multiple times in a short period (Australia and Philipines).

I am just saying, open your eyes and be honest. Scientifically the trends are there…
hot day records broken over cold 3 to 1
hot night records over cold 5 to 1
Extreme precipitation up by 7% for every degree
and much more (posted before)

According to the peer reviewed BEST study, that examined over 1 billion heat records, temps have risen 1.5 deg c in 250 years and 0.9 in the last 50. For anyone that does not think that is a lot globally do not understand global temperatures.

There is only 6 degrees c globally between an ice age, where Montreal is buried under km of ice and an interglacial like now. Small changes in global temperature have a huge influence on regional climates. Learn some science. Big and small numbers is not science, it is the effect that counts.

What is your point Michael?
You move from one subject to the next, not bothering to answer questions, defend the statements you make and the information you paste.
Do you have a point?

What about your latest post?
Do you think we don’t know that it has warmed for the last 100 years?
The question is why?
Is it natural variation or caused by humans.
Most of us here think the cause is almost entirely caused by nature.
How long will it last?
Who knows but looking at the bigger picture I hope it will continue for a little while longer as the signs aren’t good.
This millennium is the coldest in the current epoch.
Over the past 10,000 years the current Holocene epoch has been progressively cooling since the early “climate optimum”. Overall in the 10,000 years the world has cooled gradually by about 1.0 °C.
Every (about 1000 years) the planet has warmed up for a little while (Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods) but every warm period (150-300 years) has been on average colder than the previous one.
So this warm period might soon be coming to an end very soon or last for another 50-100 years.
Who knows?
But one thing is for sure, anthropogenic CO2 won’t have anything to do with it.

I asked this of him on an earlier thread. Apparently he is here to educate us because we get paid billions from fossil fuel companies to undermine the science.

I wonder when Jo’s cheque is going to arrive?

He is a well scripted annoyance here, nothing more. He claims to be a swinging voter, then expends a lot of characters blowing sunshine up Rudd’s arse, not to mention the quotes about Abbott and Catholicism.

Just another leftard activist really. Probably been assigned to this blog by John Cook the cartoonist, GetUp or the ALP, despite claims to the contrary.

Do you think we don’t know that it has warmed for the last 100 years?
The question is why?

Well I do try to answer all questions, but I am not able to be here all the time and there are so many questions. I have answered virtually all of them previously but people keep asking them because you tend to not register anything that does not confirm your bias.

I have numerous times pointed out that they have examined natural factors, that most of them are in cooling directions, and that the warming cannot be explained by cooling factors alone, YOUR HAVE TO add CO2.

“When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.”http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/

“This volcanism, combined with a simple proxy for anthropogenic effects (logarithm of the CO2 concentration), reproduces much of the variation in the land surface temperature record; the fit is not improved by the addition of a solar forcing term. Thus, for this very simple model, solar forcing does not appear to contribute to the observed global warming of the past 250 years; the entire change can be modeled by a sum of volcanism and a single anthropogenic proxy. The residual variations include interannual and multi-decadal variability very similar to that of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).”http://www.scitechnol.com/GIGS/GIGS-1-101.php

This millennium is the coldest in the current epoch.
Over the past 10,000 years the current Holocene epoch has been progressively cooling since the early “climate optimum”. Overall in the 10,000 years the world has cooled gradually by about 1.0 °C.

Yep and we were in a global cooling trend until industrialisation. That suggests that AGW is overwhelming long term as well as short term factors and trends

“Yep and we were in a global cooling trend until industrialisation. That suggests that AGW is overwhelming long term as well as short term factors and trends”

Right, and warming never happened before?
The Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods, happening at 1000 year intervals were caused by …..?

“Yep and we were in a global cooling trend until industrialisation.”
In an earlier post you state that “temps have risen 1.5 deg c in 250 years”
So it obviously didn’t start with the ‘industrialisation’.
Hint: It has something to do with the Little Ice Age (LIA,a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period. The world has been slowly warming after that period.

“That suggests that AGW is overwhelming long term as well as short term factors and trends.”

No it doesn’t.
Correlation does not imply causation.
Like I wrote before, we now see a clear disconnect between CO2 and global warming.
There has been an 18-23 year pause in global warming.
In fact, the data trend shows that it has cooled (0.1 C) over the last 10 years.

Of course it has, and cooling, and greater and less CO2 and even no atmosphere at all, no oxygen and a probably snowball earth period. Are you confused? I have NEVER SAID (in fact explicitly the opposite) that the climate has not changed naturally, unlike you I don’t think this means that we cannot influence it ourselves. Considering the large changes we have, and are constantly making, to this planet as we try to feed, accommodate, entertain, transport and the like 7 billion people, the planet is vastly different than it would have been naturally. In fact we have been able to change a global atmospheric component by 40% (CO2).

You are basically saying that since forest fires have happened naturally in the past then we cannot light a fire with a match. What type of argument is that?

The Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods

I would say largely natural factors.

In fact, the data trend shows that it has cooled (0.1 C) over the last 10 years.

sigh, where back at 10 years are we? You do realise it is a planet, and that things like temperatures will bounce all over the place but that the trend is demonstrably and definately up with 2001-2010 the hottest decade on the instrumental record ON EVERY CONTINENT. You also have missed what I wrote below so I will repeat it, as your pause did not last as long as you think.

Considering the large changes we have, and are constantly making, to this planet as we try to feed, accommodate, entertain, transport and the like 7 billion people, the planet is vastly different than it would have been naturally.

“A new study published in Nature-Geoscience suggests that drought in the western U.S. between 2000 and 2004 may have been the worst in nearly a millennium, depleting water resources and causing significant declines in river flows and crop yields.”

Absolute Rubbish.
You are so easily led, it is almost embarrassing.

Cries of out of control global warming become more dubious when one looks at the hottest decade in modern history, the 1930s.

The summer of 1930 marked the beginning of the longest drought of the 20th Century. From June 1 to August 3, Washington, D.C. experienced twenty-one days of high temperatures of at least 100°.
During that record-shattering heat wave, there were maximum temperatures set on nine different days that remain unbroken more than three-quarters-of-a-century later.
In 1934, bone dry regions stretched from New York, across the Great Plains, and into the Southwest. A “dust bowl” covered about 50 million acres in the south-central plains during the winter of 1935-1936. In some areas, the drought never broke until 1938.
According to the National Climatic Data Center, 1936 experienced the hottest overall summer on record in the continental United States. In fact, out of 50 states, 22 recorded their all-time high temperature during the 1930s

Thousands died from the heat. The death toll exceeded 5,000, 1,700 in 1936 alone.
The drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres
Through the drought and storms More than 500,000 Americans were left homeless.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states.
The Mississippi River almost dried up.
The 1936 heat wave followed one of the coldest winters on record in the US.

Your YouTube video with Trenberth, still hyping extreme weather events and climate change and linking increased CO2 with global warming and global warming with extreme weather is a complete dud.
This is the guy whose theory has been proven false.
The other problem is that looking at the records of the last ~20 years there has been a steady rise in CO2 but no rise in global warming.
Assuming that the weather-climate (Most of you don’t seem to know the difference) has become more ‘extreme’ as Trenberth says, of which there is absolutely no proof, where does all this ‘extreme weather’ come from if the Earth hasn’t warmed up?

‘This is the guy whose theory has been proven false’, how/when links would be good!

Check the RSS, UAH, Hatcrut, GISS and NOAA data below.
You can verify the data on the respective websites.

‘there has been a steady rise in CO2 but no rise in global warming’
Are you sure about that?

Yes, the data is unequivocal:

GISS now has over 18 years of no statistically significant warming.
As a result, we can now say the following: On six different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 18 and 23 years.

For RSS the warming is not statistically significant for over 23 years.
For UAH the warming is not statistically significant for over 19 years.
For Hadcrut3 the warming is not statistically significant for over 19 years.
For Hadcrut4 the warming is not statistically significant for over 18 years.
For GISS the warming is not statistically significant for over 18 years.
For NOAA the warming is not statistically significant for over 18 years.

Even Kevin himself is puzzled, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t”.
His new theory (Now his old theory has been proven false by the data) is that the heat has disappeared into the deep oceans.

There are a few problems with his latest theory as well.
The most obvious ones are:
1. How can the deep ocean (below 700 meters) be warming up while there has been no change in surface temperatures. In other words, how did the heat sneak past Argo?
2. Trenberth claims that modeling study suggests an increase in ocean surface winds since 2004 has led to greater mixing of heat down into the ocean. However, the AMSR-E data doesn’t show an increase in surface winds since 2004.
3. There is NO data of ocean temperatures below 700 meters where the heat is ‘hiding’.

So here are some very simple questions for you….

1. If increased CO2 causes Global Warming as the computer models predict, why hasn’t it been warming for the last 18-23 years?
2. How can Global Warming cause ‘Extreme Weather’ as there has been no Global Warming for the last 18-23 years?

When looking at a trend in data you do not play with dates until you find a period that fits your confirmation bias. What you do is look at all the data you have. So whether it is satellite or land based temps, when you look at all the data available the conclusion of warming is clear. Weather will not change immediately but as we sustain these high temperatures things like , atmospheric warming, Arctic melting, glacier melting, ocean temps (peer reviewed science says heating has occurred and is going deeper), sea level and much more will affect climate more and more.

Also Kevin is not puzzled, you have taken his comments out of context, your comment is old, and he has explained what is happening.

“A decade is the minimum possible timeframe for meaningful assessments of climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “WMO’s report shows that global warming was significant from 1971 to 2010 and that the decadal rate of increase between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 was unprecedented. Rising concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are changing our climate, with far reaching implications for our environment and our oceans, which are absorbing both carbon dioxide and heat.”
“Natural climate variability, caused in part by interactions between our atmosphere and oceans – as evidenced by El Niño and La Niña events – means that some years are cooler than others. On an annual basis, the global temperature curve is not a smooth one. On a long-term basis the underlying trend is clearly in an upward direction, more so in recent times” said Mr Jarraud.http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/images/clip_image002_006.gifhttp://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_976_en.html

No, most people take out insurance because it is required by the bank holding the mortgage.

The main point about the insurance metaphor and the precautionary principle is that they sound good until you start putting figures to them. I could insure anyone’s house and offer to pay them a sum equal to the value of the house if they so much as scratch the paintwork.

Sounds good, would every alarmist want to buy some? Well they would until they discovered that the monthly premiums exceeded the cost of the house and a maximum of only two payouts a year would be made.

If people hear the word insurance they always assume that the premiums will be much less than the amount insured. For global warming the costs always seem to be much greater than the benefits.

The Labor Party is doing itself a lot of damage in the public eye purely with all their infighting.

Whether viewers understand the deeper issues or not, most are pretty fed up with all the political cr*p going on, the lying and the cheating, the thieving, the dodging and the spinning and the back stabbing.

It’s all pretty obvious, and I can only think they hoped no one would notice – or be too dumb to. Bottom line is, no one wants people who act like squabbling two year-olds making decisions on a national level.

This MSM reporting that Rudd will “terminate” or get rid of the carbon tax is very misleading.
The average person in the street will read it and think ” that’s good, it will be gone along with all the costs”. The cost will still be there, the scam is still in place just a different name and method of operation.

Digging holes and planting trees is more efficient than digging holes and planting jars of money, which is in turn much more efficient than any of the Australian government’s current “green schemes” , as beautifully shown on a previous post of jo’s. And, as jo stated, it is very simple to scale down and close down when humanity finaly comes to it’s senses. Nice, have you ever looked at the history of environmental scares… Acid Rain, Ozone Holes, insecticides causing cancer and destroying the environment….I mean really looked. Dont just take Wiki’s word for it, actually use the net to do your own research. Read a few books, too. Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist” and “Global Crises,Global Solutions”, Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”, Plimer’s “Short History of Planet Earth” is easier to read than “Heaven and Earth” and Robert Carter’s latest book “Taxing Air” has even got cartoons for our younger, less print orientated friends. Or , if you prefer the fine print, try to get hold of Mathieson’s “Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate;How Truth Became Cotroversial”

Here’s another possible downside to wind turbines:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-11/bushfire-pilots-want-investigation-into-wind-turbines/4815302
A quick back of the envelope calculation tells me the wake turbulence from a modest wind farm may rival that of a medium sized airliner. I suspect when there is an inversion and light winds and the wind is in just the right direction the wakes from the individual turbines may reinforce in some places and cancel in others.
Oh and that infrasound problem that supposedly doesn’t exist was the subject of a 1987 report by the US DoE where they actually did some theoretical calculations and backed them by experiment. Haven’t got the link but I do have a copy of the pdf.

Against that Jo is the fact that Rudd lacks courage as shown by his squibbing a double dissolution early in 2010 and his on-again-off-again-on-again leadership attempts.
Also he so enjoys pretending to be a prime minister and with the distinct possibility of him losing the title and subsequently ALP leadership to become another nonentity — he cannot contemplate that possibility.

Hey, they say Rudd’s a smart critter. The ALP would have sharper tools than him one hopes working on the actual figures and policy day in day out. He and they’d know their ETS linkup to EU is a blow job. That they need to recall parliament and get the Greens onside and that isn’t happening any time. So Rudd and the ALP are closing down FBT on company cars now knowing their excuse is bs. It’s your plain old fashioned income tax grab. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s a con job.

Is this a really real issue of asylum boats? Why they always use the same tactics in the election? Who are the players in the ‘people smuggling business’, “taxation business model” and “super insurance scheme”? “faceless-man” or sponsor of ‘faceless-man’? or the sponsor of ‘local criminal network’?

Insider deals are never ending. Check out who receive awards and free stuffs? Who pays? You – Australian taxpayers.

News update:
“Macquarie University has today awarded a doctor of letters honoris causa to both the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Australia and Indonesia; Senator the Honorable Bob Carr and His Excellency Dr Marty Natalegawa.”

I have asserted many times over the last “n” years that AGW is a scam.
I have something new to report. The trolls now respond to this assertion with “liar” and “lies”.
Should I instead use words like “fraud”, “embezzlement” of public funds? I beginning to think “scam” may be an understatement.
I note that across a few web sites the standard troll response of “denier!” is being replaced with “liar!”.

the standard troll response of “denier!” is being replaced with “liar!”

This is because even though it aptly describes a person who denies what the vast majority of the actual science, data and observations is telling us, administrators will generally block a user who uses the term. Basically we are not allowed to use it. We are not left with many things we can call you as a block, unlike you guys who use…

alarmist
warmist
suffer from peno-cephalic disorder
Appealing to bogans like Michael
You are in denial
You really are clueless!
You really are thick Michael….
You are a useful idiot.
If not, he is the DUPE that Television Producers hoped they could create given dumb enough material to work with
Michael is a brain dead Labor zombie
…

Just to quote a few recent comments directed at me.
But I have to be really really careful to not insult anyone or I will be blocked. Food for thought.

a person who denies what the vast majority of the actual science, data and observations is telling us

Such weasel words. You’re not game enough to accuse us of denying the evidence, you’re only saying we deny what these observations are telling us. You would like to interpret evidence to mean something different to what we interpret it to mean.

Okay, which evidence specifically do warmists interpret differently to us naysayers?
And please don’t give me the “warming stopped / warming still occurring” argument, because we don’t have enough data to show that the world has gone into a cooling phase yet, so it is not possible to say if warming over 17+ years will continue or go negative. That one can’t yet be interpreted either way.

But is there any other time scale for temperature, or any other measurements of any kind, which you interpret differently to the climate skeptics, and why?

Well I need to be careful in what I say because I have been blocked from many different pages for just using the word.

As to what evidence we interpret differently? Well the basic physics for a start. I have had some posters even deny the greenhouse effect, that CO2 causes warming and that we have increased CO2 by 40%. I have not seen one peer reviewed paper that questions those. To say that it is cooling (claims made several times) also has no support in the science. The fact is, according to the science and data (I have posted links to them many times), that the 2001 – 2010 decade is the hottest on the industrial record, that the years 2011 and 2012 were the hottest la nina affected years on record and that according to other research is probably the hottest decade on every continent for several thousand years. Research shows that the LIA and MWP were mainly regional in nature and regardless we do not deny natural factors and there is evidence of natural causes for both of them. They are not reasons why AGW is not occuring, though using them as reasons happen often. The science tells us the climate can be affected by natural and anthropogenic factors (but often the claim is made man is to small to influence anything) and that most natural factors are in cooling directions but it has not cooled.

Ehhh, not so good. “Basic physics”, no matter what you think is “basic” or established law, is still ultimately theory, not observable fact. It’s not evidence. Please learn the difference.

deny the greenhouse effect, that CO2 causes warming and that we have increased CO2 by 40%.

Again, these are not observations, they are theoretical causes of things that can be observed. Please learn the difference between theory and fact.

To say that it is cooling (claims made several times) also has no support in the science.

The ocean heat content was reducing in ARGO data until one GISS minion of Hansen’s claimed to have “found” a cooling bias in the buoys and he then “corrected” the trend to restore the politically acceptable result of warming. Whether this correction is genuine we will never know. I have never heard any statement from NASAS that the bias was traced to a specific design defect and that the bias was reproduced under controlled conditions. Without the evidence to say they are lying I am forced to assume the bias was real, I just want to point out how suspicious it looks. When the real data didn’t support the theory, they kept the theory and massaged the data to match. Complete anti-science.
If that procedural oddity is disregarded it does leave us to conclude the planet is warming… slightly.
As I said, there is not enough evidence to say whether warming on a 30-year scale has stopped or will continue.

the 2001 – 2010 decade is the hottest on the industrial record, that the years 2011 and 2012 were the hottest la nina affected years on record

You are interpreting this warming trend to be a consequence of industrialisation, but skeptics correctly recognise that correlation does not imply causation. The alleged causal mechanism must be proven separately.
Additionally it has already been shown that the world land temperature record, even after the adjustments by the data providers, has been affected by Urban Heat Island. When these effects are removed the temperature trend is cut by half.

the years 2011 and 2012 were the hottest la nina affected years on record

Perhaps. Right now the current El Nino looks set to be the coolest in 30 years. The oceanic warm cycles are getting cooler and the oceanic cool cycles are getting warmer, so which prevails? You interpret the ocean cycle data by cherry-picking the cycle that is warming, but this is interpreting half the evidence not the whole evidence.

[the 2001 – 2010 decade] according to other research is probably the hottest decade on every continent for several thousand years.

What other research? The only evidence I have seen about temperatures for the past 10,000 years shows the Minoan and Roman warm periods as warmer than the present. To reconstruct prior millenia global temperatures at the temporal resolution of better than a decade is presently impossible by any method known to me, so I believe it is absolutely impossible for anyone to say that a recent decade has eclipsed all prior decades of the Holocene.
Therefore you have misinterpreted proxy studies, whereas the skeptics recognise the limits of such proxy studies means the past and present cannot be compared on such short time scales as a decade.
As a final nail in the coffin of your interpretive skill, additionally you commit the error of attempting to measure the climate on a scale of less than 30 years, whereas according to the WMO (and the definition adopted by the IPCC) climate is the 30 year average of temperature and rainfall. A decade does not qualify as a climate measurement.
Which multi-proxy study shows global temperatures of 2000+ years ago with a temporal error (or integrative period) of less than 10 years?

Research shows that the LIA and MWP were mainly regional in nature

Ahah! Finally you have been caught denying the evidence. Research shows the opposite. The MWP appears in cave stalagmites in caves from New Zealand to South America [cooler, warmer], in pollen studies from Southern Siberia, and isotope proxies in Japan. If that doesn’t qualify as global then what does?

we do not deny natural factors

Oh really? So the warmists have changed their tune since the IPCC AR4 was released – in which the IPCC continued to deny the influence of solar activity and pretended TSI is the only solar variable relevant to climate?
Have the warmists changed their tune from just a few years ago when they claimed that models could not reconstruct the modern temperature record without using a strong warming influence from CO2? Because here is a model which does exactly that with 90% correlation using zero CO2 influence, and here is another model which uses a much lower CO2 influence than the IPCC and yet its 13 year forecast from 2000 is showing more accuracy than the AR4 consensus.
But now warmists do not deny natural factors? That is great news. I look forward to seeing AR5 admitting that the modern temperature record can be reconstructed from natural cyclic influences with better than 90% correlation using a climate sensitivity to CO2 of less than 1.1 degrees per doubling.

[natural factors] are not reasons why AGW is not occuring

In strictly logical argument terms, yes, but as a physical mechanism to explain the scale of the observations, no. Reality trumps theory and it especially trumps any logical proposition which has incomplete constraints on the variables. There could be AGW but the contributions must still add up to the observed amount. The greater the natural factors the less the AGW must be, that’s the constraint missing from your proposition. There is only a certain amount of planetary warming that has occurred. When the strength of the natural factors is properly recognised, and it is then seen the natural factors can account for over 90% of the temperature record, it logically follows that the whole 0.6C degrees of warming in the 20th century cannot be fully attributed to CO2 (even with feedbacks). It can’t be more than 10% of 20th century warming as shown by Pangburn. It’s less than half of the IPCC’s 2.1C/doubling. Thus the “C” (for catastrophe) is removed from “C.A.G.W.” and any cause for concern and preventative action evaporates along with it.

most natural factors are in cooling directions but it has not cooled.

Indeed. And in low latitudes at 2pm the temperature is still increasing compared to midday even though the solar forcing has been decreasing for 2 hours. A lag between the forcing and the temperature is completely expected in a system which involves water and shows lags on other cause-and-effect relationships too.
Here again you wish to interpret the data different to skeptics, but a lagged interpretation is more consistent with paleoclimate and modern satellite studies of radiative response (eg Lindzen & Choi 2011).

If you really want to broaden your horizons you should find a spare 40 minutes and watch this lecture:http://sciencebits.com/Munich-2012
It contains a good summary of the most essential points I have listed above as well as the evidence that supports the natural climate change hypothesis (ie the null hypothesis of climate change).
Actually it will only take 37.5 minutes to watch, but you will spend the remaining 2.5 minutes cursing the IPCC in outrage that these non-scientific UN bureaucrats have lied to you for the last 20 years.

Gravity, evolution, the general theory of relativity, plate tectonics and quantum physics are examples of well accepted theories that much of todays science is based on as well as most of the products you use in everyday life. Do you trust the results of your MRI? do you reach for your map book instead of the GPS? do you write on paper instead of trusting your thumb drive? Do you use a computer? Because if you do not trust Physics theories you should dump them all and go and live in a cave. Most of the science they are based on are not an ‘observable fact’.

Shame on you, your comments are either proving, or contributing to the dumbing down of scientific literacy. This is one of the most fundamental understandings of science if you understood it at all. A strong theory in science is an accepted general principle. You guys use a laymans understanding of the word theory to perpetuate the impression that it is not accepted or valid, thereby contributing to the decline in respect for, and understanding of science.

Hey Michael, you jackass,
In the context of being asked for facts that skeptics deny or misinterpret,
HERE IS THE STATEMENT YOU DISPUTED AS BEING FALSE:

“Basic physics”, no matter what you think is “basic” or established law, is still ultimately theory, not observable fact.

YOUR NOMINATED DEFINITION OF THEORY:

a theory is an explanation or model based on observation… helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.

YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND THE DEFINITIONS YOU QUOTE.

You guys use a laymans understanding of the word theory to perpetuate the impression that it is not accepted or valid, thereby contributing to the decline in respect for, and understanding of science.

No, jackass! I used the word theory in the scientific sense CORRECTLY, and ACCORDING TO YOUR NOMINATED DEFINITION OF THEORY. I made NO statement about whether theories were widely accepted, YOU introduced that strawman!

Fact: Things fall down, it’s observed reliably.
Theory: All matter attracts each other with a force we hypothesised called Universal Gravitation.
You can’t see gravity, it’s not an observation, you can only see things accelerate without contact.
Here is a true sentence: Gravity is a theory and it is true and it is not a fact.
When you are scientifically literate you will understand why there is no contradiction in that sentence.

Fact: Observed or measured.
Theory: An EXPLANATION for HOW and WHY the observable facts occur!
Fact: Real and implicitly true.
Theory: Abstract and conditionally true.
SEE THE DIFFERENCE!??

Hey Michael! You’re a jackass! Shame on you for being scientifically illiterate and not even understanding the definitions that you quote!

Ehhh, not so good. “Basic physics”, no matter what you think is “basic” or established law, is still ultimately theory, not observable fact. It’s not evidence. Please learn the difference.

That statement is not relevent if you understood the strength of theories in relation to science. It is in fact nonsense. If you accept the scientific definition of a theory as

As used in science, however, a theory is an explanation or model based on observation, experimentation, and reasoning, especially one that has been tested and confirmed as a general principle helping to explain and predict natural phenomena.

Then you can see it is a strong explanation of the physical world and not something that is belittled and put down as having little relevence. Again, facts do not explain the basic physics of how our world works and what most of our inventions are based on, THEORIES DO.

he ocean heat content was reducing in ARGO data…Complete anti-science.

Wrong and not anti science, actual peer reveiwed science rather than anti science opinion like you provided.“The warming below 700 m remains even when the Argo observing system is withdrawn although the trends are reduced. Sensitivity experiments illustrate that surface wind variability is largely responsible for the changing ocean heat vertical distribution.”http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract

You are interpreting this warming trend to be a consequence of industrialisation,…has been affected by Urban Heat Island

Wrong again, apart from the fact that there have been many many studies(I have provided links before) that have investigated natural factors and concluded that the warming cannot be explained without warming from mans emissions of CO2. Apart from that several studies have found that the UHI effect is negligible on the temperature record. This is a made up excuse, the following is based on over 1 billion temp records.“We observe the opposite of an urban heating effect over the period 1950 to 2010, with a slope of -0.10 ± 0.24°C/100yr (2σ error) in the Berkeley Earth global land temperature average. The confidence interval is consistent with a zero urban heating effect, and at most a small urban heating effect (less than 0.14°C/100yr, with 95% confidence) on the scale of the observed warming (1.9 ± 0.1°C/100 yr since 1950 in the land average from Figure 5A).”http://www.scitechnol.com/GIGS/GIGS-1-104.php
Right now the current El Nino looks set to be the coolest in 30 years.

Actually that proves my point. Despite a preponderance of cooling factors temperatures have been maintained and are still at the highest levels in several thousand years. If we end up with another la nina then that will be 3 in a row and global temps have not fallen meaningfully, in fact as pointed out above, the la nina affected years are the highest on record. But when discussing temperature you guys conveniently ignore natural factors.

What other research? The only evidence I have seen about temperatures for the past 10,000 years shows the Minoan and Roman warm periods as warmer than the present.

I said several thousand not 10 thousand, to go back that far is meaningless as factors that are affected on geological times scales kick in, which are not responsible for warming on the small time scales we are looking at. Despite that every proxy of several thousand years that I have seen of global temps shows now as hottest and without any observable natural factor to explain it.
“Past global climate changes had strong regional expression. To elucidate their spatio-temporal pattern, we reconstructed past temperatures for seven continental-scale regions during the past one to two millennia. The most coherent feature in nearly all of the regional temperature reconstructions is a long-term cooling trend, which ended late in the nineteenth century. At multi-decadal to centennial scales, temperature variability shows distinctly different regional patterns, with more similarity within each hemisphere than between them. There were no globally synchronous multi-decadal warm or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age, but all reconstructions show generally cold conditions between ad 1580 and 1880, punctuated in some regions by warm decades during the eighteenth century. The transition to these colder conditions occurred earlier in the Arctic, Europe and Asia than in North America or the Southern Hemisphere regions. Recent warming reversed the long-term cooling; during the period ad 1971–2000, the area-weighted average reconstructed temperature was higher than any other time in nearly 1,400 years.”http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo1797.html

woops I messed up the blockquote on the above response. I hope you can understand it. Nearly done, sorry you brought up a lot of points.

you commit the error of attempting to measure the climate on a scale of less than 30 years, whereas according to the WMO (and the definition adopted by the IPCC) climate is the 30 year average of temperature and rainfall. A decade does not qualify as a climate measurement.

Finally somebody here admitting that. I bring up the hottest decade as on decadel timescales that show the trend you are after. The last decade was hotter than the current one that was hotter than the one before that etc. From the WMO…“A decade is the minimum possible timeframe for meaningful assessments of climate change,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. “WMO’s report shows that global warming was significant from 1971 to 2010 and that the decadal rate of increase between 1991-2000 and 2001-2010 was unprecedented. Rising concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are changing our climate, with far reaching implications for our environment and our oceans, which are absorbing both carbon dioxide and heat.”

“Natural climate variability, caused in part by interactions between our atmosphere and oceans – as evidenced by El Niño and La Niña events – means that some years are cooler than others. On an annual basis, the global temperature curve is not a smooth one. On a long-term basis the underlying trend is clearly in an upward direction, more so in recent times” said Mr Jarraud.http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_976_en.html

Ahah! Finally you have been caught denying the evidence. Research shows the opposite.

I point you to my ACTUAL PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE in the above post, not opinion blog. regional in nature has been proved.

Oh really? So the warmists have changed their tune since the IPCC AR4 was released – in which the IPCC continued to deny the influence of solar activity

They do not. The IPCC examine all natural factors, they always have. Opinion blog models do not interest me, actually I don’t spend that much time on models period. They are projections of specific scenarios with everything remaining constant. This is not the real world, and are only useful to give us some idea of where we may be headed. They have been largely correct but the science does not rely on them to be correct.

The greater the natural factors the less the AGW must be, that’s the constraint missing from your proposition.

Not at all, there have been several studies that have quantified and tried to take into account natural factors. When the natural factors are taken into account they normally confirm that warming has continued unabated. Again ACTUAL peer reveiwed science.“When the data are adjusted to remove the estimated impact of known factors on short-term temperature variations (El Niño/southern oscillation, volcanic aerosols and solar variability), the global warming signal becomes even more evident as noise is reduced. Lower-troposphere temperature responds more strongly to El Niño/southern oscillation and to volcanic forcing than surface temperature data. The adjusted data show warming at very similar rates to the unadjusted data, with smaller probable errors, and the warming rate is steady over the whole time interval. In all adjusted series, the two hottest years are 2009 and 2010.”http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/4/044022/fulltext/

cursing the IPCC in outrage that these non-scientific UN bureaucrats have lied to you for the last 20 years.

Again not at all. In fact the IPCC do not create science, they compile all the peer reviewed science periodically and produce reports based on it for policy makers. I most often go to the actual peer reviewed science and look at the actual trends and data from proper science sites like NOAA and NASA.

SO in conclusion you don’t seem to understand that science is based on theories and that nothing is 100% but in a continuous mode of improvement and refinement. This does not mean we sit on our hands and do nothing, otherwise we would not have most of the understanding and technology we currently enjoy. We need to make decisions on a balance of probabilities and on what the available evidence, science, measurements and observations are telling us. They are saying that there is a 90% plus probability that AGW is real and is going to create a less habitable planet for our children and future generations. To ignore that and put our own profit motives ahead of those considerations is both immoral and unethical. Especially since any rational observer can see that consequences are already occurring as predicted and people are already suffering. This will/is actual affect us in our lifetimes.http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators

LOL, love how that comes up so often from prolific posters. My kids have both left home and are having families of their own. I do this to make sure that they have long, safe and prosperous futures. A lot better reason than for selfish wants and needs and fossil fuel profits.

Not that I really believe that, because I absolutely won’t accept anything less than the 17 year trend that Santer said would be enough to falsify global warming models. I would prefer to stay with 30 year trends wherever possible. Still 5 years to go before global cooling becomes unambiguous.

I point you to my ACTUAL PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE in the above post, not opinion blog.

And I already pointed YOU to an online collection of ACTUAL PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE in the published literature of temperature reconstructions! Not an “opinion blog”, just a collection of data from papers that were published over three decades completely independently of the global warming debate. All co2science have done is find them, collect them in one place, and record how much warmer/cooler than present the paper showed the MWP to be.

Even more hilarious is that the PAGES2K paper you linked to as “actual peer reviewed” was NOT subjected to NORMAL peer review, it was given the EASY treatment by being published as a “Progress” article rather than a full “Research” paper, UNLIKE the papers collected by co2science!

regional in nature has been proved.

No it hasn’t! You just saw the charts from Japan, Siberia, South America, and New Zealand, which support the warmer-than-today MWP of western Europe. You can’t prove a hypothesis which is contrary to observation.
Then you have linked to a paper showing an MWP in Asia and North America at least as warm as the present. Hilarious.
It gets even more hilarious. PAGES2K includes an analysis from a PREVIOUSLY RETRACTED paper by Gergis claiming an Australian hockeystick!
Even more hilarious, the PAGES2K paper shows a hockeystick for the Arctic which does NOT appear in the Arctic temperature reconstructions by the original author.
The best part is that there’s even suspicion the South American glacier ice core was used upside down.
There is your “peer reviewed science”.

I chose proxies AT RANDOM from co2science and found a warmer MWP in 4 out of 5 and I didn’t hide from you the proxy that showed it being cooler. Yet somehow this crew have found just the right analytical technique to show the MWP being cooler than present. Very, very interesting.

Since this paper is so new and covers so much we’ll have to wait to see how this paper gets assessed by the other scientists and statisticians. I would love to know how they “proved” something contrary to the majority of proxies found by others.

The IPCC examine all natural factors, they always have.

This is a comedy show now, right? You’re just writing jokes here. You MUST be kidding.
Maybe you’ve forgotten that the IPCC are the Warmists who blame warming mainly on Industry, and the climate skeptics are the ones who say the Null hypothesis of (mostly) natural climate change has not been disproven by evidence.
I have previously linked to a video by Nir Shaviv summarising the TWO MAIN factors determining climate VARIABILITY – factors the IPCC has ALWAYS ignored: Their poor understanding of Cloud feedback, and the influence of solar magnetosphere and solar wind on cloud formation. Yes, the Total Solar Irradiance is the ONLY “solar” factor that the IPCC had modelled, but “solar activity” is DIFFERENT to TSI. When discussing temperature you guys conveniently ignore natural factors! Svensmark had to fill in the gaps that the IPCC said NOTHING about!

You are certainly a faithful student of the IPCC school of natural climate change denial.

[climate models] have been largely correct but the science does not rely on them to be correct.

the IPCC do not create science, they compile all the peer reviewed science periodically and produce reports based on it for policy makers.

And they deceive the public when they do so. You haven’t heard much about the IPCC. eg See page 19 of Singer’s analysis. When the scientific consensus for the 1996 report said “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.” but then the final printed summary for policymakers said “The body of statistical evidence in Chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.”, that was an IPCC lie.
When the 2001 TAR gave Mann’s 1000-year hockeystick graph prominent importance without mentioning the contrary evidence which J Christy [pg 7] had brought to the IPCC’s attention, that was an IPCC intentional omission of relevant evidence.

We need to make decisions on a balance of probabilities and on what the available evidence, science, measurements and observations are telling us. They are saying that there is a 90% plus probability that AGW is real and is going to create a less habitable planet

(It’s like talking to a brick wall.) No, the observations don’t say that, not even most scientists say that, only the IPCC and the heads of the science bodies say that. The people who appoint themselves officials and authorities say AGW will be catastrophic, but observations don’t. Again you fail to distinguish between hypothesis and fact. Facts cannot tell you what will happen, only reliable models and theories can tell you what will happen.
The fact is that 11 of the IPCC’s AR4 models had exactly the opposite response to warming than was observed by satellites (Lindzen and Choi 2011), that’s how wrong the models were.
The facts still support the hypothesis of mainly natural climate change.

CAGW theory: The rise of (Anthropogenic) CO2 in the atmosphere will cause (runaway) global warming.

Nobody defending that theory has proven that atmospheric CO2 has a noticeable effect on the actual global temperatures outside the laboratory or computer models.

If this was about scientists following scientific principles, this alone should have been enough to do away with this theory. For a theory to stand, people have to prove the theory, not the other way around.

On top of this, paleontology shows that the rise in CO2 follows warming.
In the real world we now see a clear disconnect between rising CO2 levels and global temperatures.
The ‘hot spot’ cited as evidence by the proponents of the theory of CAGW isn’t found. Suddenly this isn’t important anymore and the theory now has the heat hiding in the deep oceans.

This is no longer (and hasn’t been for some time now) a scientific theory anymore.

Well said Andy.
Anyone reading your posts above will readily see that the alarmists, upon whom the onus of proof resides I might add (NOT skeptics), refuse to acknowledge any of the contrary evidence you quote above, and have absolutely no proof that would stand up as even a prima facie case in a court of law for their contentions, and therefore they have no logical reason to undertake “actions” (still waiting for any well thought out “actions” that would make a scrap of difference to climate, frequency of adverse or extreme weather events, etc) proposed against the entirely speculative alleged consequences.

They are then also seen to be completely hand waving away inconvenient reality diverging from predictions, and are also unable to even provide a mechanism for all this missing heat Trenberth seems to suggest should be “hiding” conveniently in the deep oceans, since it is a physical impossibility for this to occur (a flea can’t lift an elephant thermodynamically speaking), and even then they have no statistically significant observation of warming at any depth outside the error bars of the instruments used to measure it to provide evidence in their favour, even allowing that it were possible.

One has to ask, what more would be required for these guys to admit that maybe, just maybe, that they and the scientists they have placed so much faith in are wrong? And why are they inverting a century or two of established scientific principles to avoid acknowledging the bleeding obvious?

has proven that atmospheric CO2 has a noticeable effect on the actual global temperatures

Since industrialisation temps have risen 1.5 deg c, where it had been in a global cooling trend until we started emitting CO2. This is consistent with laboratory experiments, measurements and physics calculations. In the last 50 years it has been 0.9 deg c. Examination of natural factors find that most of them are in cooling directions and that virtually all studies have found that you cannot account for the warming by using natural factors alone, you HAVE TO add CO2.

Virtually all the fingerprints of warming by CO2 are occurring from lower trop warming to stratosphere cooling, hot days increasing over cold days, hot nights increasing even more over cold nights, Arctic melting, ocean warming, sea level rising, ocean acidification, greater moisture holding of the atmosphere, and much more.

You can give your old Trenberth comment a break, the comment is old and was taken out of context.
From Trenberths own research
“In the last decade, about 30% of the warming has occurred below 700 m, contributing significantly to an acceleration of the warming trend.”http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract

So consider the scientific method alive and well and there is no peer reviewed paper that throws any real question mark on the greenhouse effect and the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas. So you might think bloggers opinion are science, but that is incorrect.

Other_Andy
July 19, 2013 at 8:40 am · Reply
I can’t believe we are still having this conversation.

CAGW theory: The rise of (Anthropogenic) CO2 in the atmosphere will cause (runaway) global warming.

Nobody defending that theory has proven that atmospheric CO2 has a noticeable effect on the actual global temperatures outside the laboratory or computer models.

Not in the laboratory Other Andy – they have never shown carbon dioxide capable of doing what they claim for it.

There is a reason for this, they do not have real gas carbon dioxide in their models, they have turned it into a “massless ideal gas not subject to gravity”, which is a theoretical construct at best, which has no weight, volume, attraction, that is, it has no properties and thus no processes or interactions.

they have turned it into a “massless ideal gas not subject to gravity”, which is a theoretical construct at best, which has no weight, volume, attraction, that is, it has no properties and thus no processes or interactions.

Wow, is this seriously what you believe? You know this basically refers to neutrinos from the sun, which passes through every square cm of us at the rate of 1 billion per second. But then again recent research even gives them a tiny bit of mass.

Your comment about it having no properties, weight, volume etc is complete scientific nonsense. Shame on you for such a lie. (ed I can say that because it is true, unless you can point me to proof that carbon and oxygen combined basically do not exist for all intents and purposes.)